This invention relates generally to scalable multidimensional ring networks, and more specifically to increasing the connectivity of a scalable multidimensional ring network by providing additional rings.
Communications networks are comprised of network processing nodes, such as modems, routers, switches. These network processing nodes are interconnected using various signal carrying media, for example optical fiber, co-axial, satellite and wireless transmitters. The communications networks can be designed in many different configurations to solve existing problems, such as scalability, performance, bandwidth and redundancy.
One existing architecture, a scalable multidimensional ring network, described in U.S. patent application entitled “SCALABLE MULTIDIMENSIONAL RING NETWORK” by P. Lothberg and A. Bates, filed Mar. 23, 2000, application Ser. No. 09/535,437 includes a plurality of network processing nodes that are connected together with a plurality of individual ring networks. Packets, which are units of information, are transmitted between any two network processing nodes on the same individual ring network. Intermediate network processing nodes located on the same ring, between the sending and receiving processing devices, do not add additional hops (transmissions from node to node in a communications network) to the packet transfer. The intermediate processing devices simply pass the packets through to the next network processing device on the same ring. The packets are passed through to the destination network processing device without the intermediate processing devices having to read or process the packet headers. This allows the number of network processing nodes and the number of individual ring networks in the scalable multidimensional ring network to be increased without adding additional hops, and the associated latency, between network processing nodes.
Communications networks configured in a scalable multidimensional ring can be arranged into a three-dimensional cube having X, Y and Z axes. The individual ring networks in this architecture interconnect the network processing nodes logically aligned along the same rows and columns in the same planes of the cube. An advantage of a three-dimensional cube ring network is that it takes a maximum of only three hops to send information between any two nodes within the communications network. Only one hop is required to send information between any two nodes connected on the same ring. A three-dimensional cube ring network can be expanded without increasing the maximum number of hops, for example a 3×3×3 three-dimensional cube network and a 4×4×4 three-dimensional cube ring network both only requires a maximum of three hops to transfer information between any two nodes in the network.
The individual ring networks connecting network processing nodes can be implemented as bidirectional rings over Wide Area Network (“WAN”) links, Local Area Network (“LAN”) links or other bus or backplane interconnections. The particulars of the bi-directional ring architectures are described in the two previously referenced co-pending patent applications: U.S. Ser. No. 09/036,539 filed Mar. 6, 1998 entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DISTRIBUTED BANDWIDTH ALLOCATION FOR A BI-DIRECTIONAL RING MEDIA WITH SPACIAL AND LOCAL REUSE and U.S. Ser. No. 09/067,482 filed Apr. 27, 1998 entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR FAULT RECOVERY FOR A TWO LINE BI-DIRECTIONAL RING NETWORK.